Rob Ford's mayoral campaign isn't a runaway but an EKOS Research poll has him back out in front of George Smitherman in the race to become Toronto's next mayor.

The independent poll finds that Ford has 43.9% of decided voters, Smitherman is in second with 35.6% and Joe Pantalone is still back in third with 15%. Around 5.5% are supporting other candidates.

The undecided voters total 15.9%.

EKOS president Frank Graves told the Sun it looks like Ford has a "pretty strong" advantage.

"When I start looking at the underlying demographics, it reinforces my conviction that Mr. Ford may not be completely in the driver's seat but he is certainly in the superior position," Graves said. "He does much better with older voters and baby boomers, those guys all vote.

"Mr. Smitherman has an advantage with university voters who also all vote but here's the problem, his advantage is less wide and there are more people in the baby boom or senior category than the university category. So advantage to Mr. Ford."

But Graves said it's not a guaranteed win for Ford yet.

"If I was betting on this, definitely I would bet Mr. Ford is going to win - I wouldn't bet the farm," he said.

"Mr. Smitherman could win but like I say, I wouldn't put my dollar on that. It is still a tight race."

EKOS conducted the telephone poll of 507 Toronto residents between Oct. 13 and Thursday. The poll has a 4.4% margin of error, 19 times out of 20.

The poll also found Ford's support draws heavily from those born outside Canada.

Around 39.6% of Ford supporters were born in Canada and 51.7% outside.

The majority of Smitherman supporters are born in Canada (38.7%) while 30.1% were born outside.

"What can you say? Here we have supposed conservatives in Calgary electing a visible minority member (as mayor) and we have visible minorities in Toronto electing a conservative, so all the rulebook seems ready to be thrown out right now," Graves said.

Because the majority of voters still are voting for someone other than Ford there will likely be some strategic voting on election day.

"My experience is that there won't be enough of that (strategic voting) probably, if my numbers are accurate, to pull it out but there will probably be a movement (to Smitherman)," Graves said. "Unfortunately for Mr. Smitherman, Mr. Pantalone has decided to stick around. If (Pantalone) hadn't been in the race this thing would probably be an absolute dead heat."

The EKOS poll comes days after the Sun released its own poll by Leger Marketing.

That poll, like others, found Ford and Smitherman locked in a statistical tie.